Strategic Marine boosts international capacity

Western Australia's Strategic Marine is continuing its strategy of developing as an international player by expanding the capacity of its Singapore facility and officially opening its new yard in Mexico.

The company has doubled the size and capacity of its shipyard at Tuas in Singapore by leasing a 3,000 sq m open area adjacent to its existing facility and erecting a 1,200 sq m covered area expected be operational by August this year.

The increased capacity will allow Strategic Marine to make an early start on the six 40 m crew boats that it announced it would build on spec.

Two of these vessels have already been ordered by Australian marine service company Samson Maritime in a contract worth US$9.8 million.

The aluminum utility vessels, with seating for 50 rig personnel and ten crew members, are scheduled for delivery in May and July next year.

Work is already under way to lay a 75 m x 22 m concrete slab on the Tuas new site. It will then get a marquee-type shed as a temporary measure, with a permanent shed being erected on the newly leased site to be constructed next year.

The expanded yard is expected to employ an additional 80 welders, fabricators and shipyard workers on top of its existing 120-strong workforce.

Meanwhile, Strategic Marine’s shipyard at Matazlan in Mexico has officially been opened with a keel-laying ceremony for the first vessel to be built at the facility.

Strategic entered a joint venture with Mazatlan-based Servicios Navales E Industriales (SENI) late last year after winning a US$11.89 million order to build two 52 m aluminum crew boats for Arrendadora Ocean Mexicana (Bluewater Marine).

Bluewater Marine will use the vessels to service its Pemex supply contract in the Gulf of Mexico.

Work on pre-fabricated modules for the first two crew boats is well under way and now that the keel has been stood in the company’s newly constructed shed, the modules can be hoisted into place.

The two boats are scheduled for delivery in the middle of next year, by which time work will already have started on two more 52 m crew boats that arebeing built on spec to meet burgeoning demand from the offshore oil industry.